


Coping Mechanisms

by Rookblonkorules



Category: Shazam! (2019)
Genre: And Billy, Billy needs one too, Drowning, Found Family, Freddy is a cuddle monster, Freddy needs a hug, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I would die for Freddy, Nightmares, brothers being brothers, but sort of, change my mind, no ships, not really - Freeform, please love on these children, probably, they're KIDS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-15 18:39:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18504766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rookblonkorules/pseuds/Rookblonkorules
Summary: In no universe is facing up against a supervillain madman and the seven deadly sins ever fun.But at least having family makes dealing with the aftermath way easier.





	Coping Mechanisms

**Author's Note:**

> Found family is my favorite trope ever and boy did this movie DELIVER!!  
> Honestly, if the sequel was all about the emotional fallout of this movie and forgot Black Adam and Mr. Mind, I would 100% be okay with that.  
> But also I want Black Adam and Mr. Mind so... maybe 85% okay with that???  
> I'm conflicted.

He’s drowning. 

Pressure is building in his lungs.  It’s burning. It’s burning and it  _ hurts. _

His fingers scrabble desperately for purchase on the ice, seeking some leverage to push himself up, but there is none.

The grip on his neck is merciless. He doesn’t have his powers. Not now. Right now, he’s just a fourteen year old kid, no lightning, no flight, no strength. 

His head is yanked from the water. The man is speaking, saying something that Billy can’t catch a word of. 

He gags, coughing up water, desperately trying to get enough air to scream. His magic is only one word away. Only one word. If he can manage to say it.

“ _ Shazam!” _

It’s on the tip of his tongue. 

“Sha-!”

His head is thrust under again before he can say the final syllable.

He tries anyways.

“Shazam!”

Nothing happens. 

No lightning. No surge of power.

Nothing.

He’s dying.

He doesn’t want to die.

He’s only fourteen.

Fourteen. 

With no one to save his family if he dies. 

No one.

...

Billy startles awake with a gasp. A sheen of sweat has formed, leaving him feeling damp. He’s breathing hard, his heart thumping against his ribcage like it might burst free at any second. 

He presses a hand against his breastbone- willing his heart rate to slow down- and starts to raise himself up. 

There’s no light in the room. The darkness forms a suffocating blanket around him and he lies still. 

It’s his imagination- he  _ knows  _ it’s his imagination- but the darkness seems like a living force, ready to swallow him whole. 

Goosebumps prickle his flesh at the thought.

It’s too easy to remember demonic faces and figures, the Seven Deadly Sins threatening himself and his family. Freddy, Mary, Eugene, Pedro, Darla. All of them. 

Rain is gently pattering against the roof. It’s oddly soothing in its own way and he lies there, listening to it.

If he concentrates hard enough, it drowns out everything else. 

Billy lets it.

He lets it because he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to remember. Any of it.

But he also knows better than anyone how the memories stick. How their stain never washes away completely. 

Didn’t he spend ten years of his life chasing after a memory? Only to find out that that memory didn’t want him? Had left him by choice?

He rolls over onto his side, blinking past the heat that’s suddenly burning behind his eyes. 

He’s not going to cry.

He’s  _ not. _

But it’s already too late and the tears are rolling down his cheeks. 

And it’s  _ stupid. _

He doesn’t want to cry. He  _ shouldn’t  _ cry. 

Superheroes don’t cry.

He’s pretty sure Superman doesn’t. 

And… he’s kind of like Superman, right? He can fly and, okay, maybe he doesn’t have laser eyes, but he’s at least bulletproof. 

So he shouldn’t cry. 

Someone shifts in the bunk below him. 

It’s not a  _ loud  _ shift.

He stills and holds his breath, worried that he’ll somehow draw Freddy’s attention. Because the last thing he wants is someone checking up on him right now. He wants to be left  _ alone. _

But nothing stirs again down below. 

Billy is completely ready to write it off as Freddy tossing in his sleep and go back to wallowing in his own misery.

But then a little choking gasp sounds from the bottom bunk. It’s muffled. The other boy is as desperate to remain unheard as Billy is. 

Was.

Because it seems like Freddy is dealing with issues of his own. 

Billy lies still, tapping one finger against the bedsheets, and he listens. 

A second muffled sniff comes from below. 

Billy hesitates. He doesn’t particularly want to get involved. He’s too used to weathering these things out by himself. He doesn’t have a clue what to do for someone else.

But maybe… maybe Freddy is only tossing in his sleep?

It’s an explanation that doesn’t hold much water and Billy knows it.

Just as he knows what tears, hidden in the middle of the night, sound like. 

He swallows thickly and waits some more. 

His fingers fan out, feeling the soft bedspread beneath him and he picks at it, chewing his lip. 

“Freddy?” he whispers. 

Silence answers him.

“Freddy?” he tries again, more earnestly this time. He sits up. The bunk creaks softly underneath him. 

There’s still silence and Billy is about to give up, salvage what he can of his night’s rest, when a quiet voice answers, “Billy?”

Billy swings his legs over the edge, but he doesn’t hop down. Yet.

“Are you okay?”

There’s another soft sniffle. Then, “Fine.”

_ Bull. _

Yet another thing Billy knows when he hears it. Before he can really think it through, he’s allowed himself to slide off the bed, landing on the floor with a soft  _ thump. _

He freezes, suddenly worried that maybe even that was enough to wake someone up.

When he hears nothing and no one comes pounding on the door, some of the tension finally drains from his muscles. He allows himself to straighten up, switching on the desktop lamp as he does so.

It isn’t bright by any means. Only a soft yellow glow permeates the room. But it’s enough.

Freddy hisses, curling away from the light and dragging the blanket up and over his head.

_ Crap. _

It’s hard to talk to someone when they won’t even look at you.

For an instant, Billy rethinks his rash decision. There’s still time to climb back onto his bunk and fall back asleep.

There’s a rustling of fabric.

“I’m sorry.” 

It’s not that Billy has trouble hearing the words. He doesn’t. 

He just can’t believe that he heard them.

“What?” he breathes.

What does Freddy have to be sorry about?

“I’m sorry,” Freddy repeats, voice louder. Even in the dim lighting, Billy can see the red-rimmed eyes and the tear tracks carving little paths down his cheeks. Despite knowing his own face is probably in the same state, it makes Billy’s heart lurch just the same.

His throat feels dry and he swallows, running his tongue over his lips. “I don’t… Why are you sorry?” he asks. He racks his brains but he really can’t find anything for Freddy to be sorry for. Unless he’s talking about that fight they had after the bus? But Billy was just as much at fault there as Freddy. If anything, he was more so. 

Shouldn’t he be the one apologizing then?

“I told him.” 

A chill sweeps over the back of Billy’s legs, shivering its way up his spine. 

“You what?” 

Freddy takes it the wrong way and flinches.

“I’m  _ sorry,” _ he repeats, turning his face away from Billy. His eyes are scrunched up tightly, lips pressed into a trembling, thin line. 

Why couldn’t it have been Rosa? Victor? Mary? Literally  _ anyone  _ here for this instead of him! Any one of them would have known what to do, what to say, how to be a comfort. Because Billy...it’s all he can do to choke out, “What are you talking about?” from a throat that feels far too thick.

“I mean I  _ told  _ him!” Freddy says forcefully. “I freaking  _ told  _ him.”  He struggles into an upright position, his back resting against the bunk’s headboard. His voice drops to a whisper, hands clenched in his lap so tightly his knuckles have turned white. “How do you think he found us?” He’s trembling with the force of his emotions, lifting his chin to meet Billy’s eyes. 

Something cold is working its way up Billy’s throat. “I…” There had been a lot to process after… everything. But in the midst of it all, he  _ had  _ wondered. 

In the time between the mall and the phone call he’d received at his mother’s apartment, how had Sivana managed to find the Vasquez family?

“It’s because I told him. I told him where to find you.” Angry tears are sliding down his face and he no longer meets Billy’s eyes, glaring straight ahead. 

A vice has clamped itself around Billy’s heart. He tries hard to ignore the feelings of betrayal rising up in his throat, threatening to choke him. To ignore the thoughts in his head that accuse  _ you too, Freddy? _ and to instead focus on the fact that this is  _ Freddy,  _ and that maybe things  _ aren’t that simple. _ But his track record with people hasn’t been great and swallowing the hurt is harder than he thinks it should be. It’s too easy to fall back into instinctual mistrust. 

He keeps his mouth shut.

Freddy pulls his good leg to his chest, curling on himself miserably. “Do you have any idea what it’s like?” he asks. “To watch your house get closer and closer and know… and know that you led a  _ freaking supervillain _ to your family?”

Billy doesn’t. But then he hasn’t had a family to speak of for a long time. Only the promise of his mom to hang on to. 

Now he might have the Vasquez’s but that prospect terrifies him in an entirely new way he isn’t sure he can wrap his head around yet. 

He pushes that aside for the moment and concentrates on what Freddy has just told him.

Billy slowly sits on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips beneath his weight just a little and Freddy withdraws deeper into himself.

“Why?” Billy asks.

Freddy glances up and Billy can see the question in his eyes, wondering if there’s an accusation in there hiding somewhere of it’s just… a question. 

When Freddy doesn’t answer, Billy shrugs his shoulders and says, “I mean… he was pretty terrifying.”  _ Not to mention those… demons. _ An involuntary shudder runs through his body and he tries very hard not to think of the demons. “Not the kind of guy you just have a conversation with on the street.”

“I didn’t want to,”  Freddy says. “I didn’t want to, but he…” A tiny choked sob escapes from Freddy’s throat. “He had those  _ demons _ and…” 

Billy quietly clenches his fists at his side. He suddenly wishes that he’d had the chance to do more to Sivana (and a part of his is scared of where those violent thoughts might lead him), but he thinks of Freddy, alone and  _ scared _ , while he ran away like a coward.

“... and I thought…” Freddy continues, pulling Billy’s attention back to him, “you had superpowers. You could take him.” He laughs bitterly and wipes at his eyes. “I turned you over to save myself. How… how  _ selfish  _ is that?”

Billy hunches over, staring at the floor. Memories of his own guilt threaten to overwhelm him. “I ran away from him.” He lets the truth sink into his gut. If he hadn’t run, if he had done what heroes were  _ supposed  _ to do, maybe Sivana would have left Freddy alone. Maybe he would have left them all alone and he wouldn’t have to live with the memory of Freddy’s terrified voice over the phone. Or Darla, tearful and struggling, after Sivana had said those four words, “ _ Kill the little girl.” _

Freddy shoots him a look. The one that says  _ don’t you dare distract me from my guilt  _ and says, “You were scared.”

“And you weren’t?” Billy shoots back. “ _ I  _ had the superpowers. If I hadn’t run away from him the first time, you wouldn’t have had to face him.”

Freddy is quiet, taking the time to let that sink in. Then he says softly, “So…. I guess we both kind of suck, huh?”

Despite himself, Billy has to chuckle at that. He sobers, scooching backwards onto the bed until he’s shoulder to shoulder to Freddy.

“Yeah,” he settles back against the headboard, smiling a little when he feels Freddy resting his head against his shoulder, “I guess we both kind of do.”

“But…” Freddy mumbles, “we do it together. One big family of… sucky superheroes.”

That drags a real laugh out of Billy. 

_ Family… sucky superheroes… _

Something warms in Billy’s heart and he sits quietly, listening as Freddy’s breathing slowly evens out.

_ Family. _

Billy can’t help it.

He thinks maybe this one will stick.

And maybe that thought is more than a little terrifying, but they…. They took out a  _ supervillain _ together.

And maybe- maybe Billy’s willing to sit out this ride for the rest of the way.

At least this time he won’t be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be about Billy, as you can probably tell from the nightmare, but then Freddy came to me in a dream and said, "Look, I know we all love Billy. Who doesn't? He's awesome. But I went through some shiz too and can we please, please, please not forget that?"  
> And honestly who can say no to that angel child?  
> And also, I think Billy deserves a chance to be the comforter as much as Freddy deserves to be the comforted.


End file.
